Following yesterday’s post on the most addictive game for designers, I’ve been informed that there is another hugely addictive game! Thanks to Peter Brooks for the recommendation.
In this game, you view a wireframe and type in the name of the website you believe it’s representing.
I apologise for your lost productivity these last two days.
Click the image below to begin…
Get ready for the most addictive game you have ever played! Especially if you’re a designer or a UXer.
You’re going to have hours of fun with this one. Get ready for a decrease in productivity and an increase in competitiveness once everyone in your office gets their hands on this!
All you have to do is look at both images and click the one that you think is the correct visual design.
Click the image to begin…
I’ve been waiting AGES to get a new mobile. I had my heart set on the Samsung Note until it started exploding… I checked out the Pixel but wasn’t impressed by the hardware – it felt cheap and I didn’t like the back of it. I even considered the iPhone, after all I’m a loyal Apple customer, all my other devices are Apple so why not my phone too? But although I love the hardware of the iPhone, I’m just not overly impressed by what’s inside. It feels like they’re not pioneering in the mobile sphere as much as they used to. They’ve got a bit comfortable…
So, when I heard of the Samsung Galaxy S8, I tried not to get my hopes up too much. However, when I saw it in the Samsung Experience store I was suitably impressed.
The hardware is NICEEEE! I’ll admit, I’m a hardware snob. What can I say, I used to work in mobile hardware so I’m now a bit fussy about good looking, high quality feeling devices. And boy, does the S8 feel high quality! Rounded edges, a good weight and classic shiny black finish that blends seamlessly into the infinity screen. Weight is important as a heavy phone is more likely to be dropped, whereas a light phone will psychologically feel cheap. It’s a fine balance.
The hardware keys are easy to locate by finger touch. However, the finger print scanner and the health sensors are very close to the camera lens. The topography of each is difficult to feel by touch alone so there’s a risk of getting finger prints over the lens if you’re not careful (although a case solves this).
I went for the S8 because I’ve been using a Note and I find it too big to use one-handed. It’s nice to mix things up a bit so I thought I’d drop down in size for this phone and maybe go up again after that. Using a bigger screen is a really nice experience, however because the screen in the S8 is tall and narrow as well as being edge-to-edge, the phone manages to be physically smaller but with a larger screen larger than bigger mobiles.
The setup process was relatively easy. It took longer than I expected (and longer than it takes on iPhones), which was surprising because I’d already backed up my old phone ready for the transfer. There are a lot of steps and a lot of small print to accept.
There’s also a lot to remember.
Much of the setup process involves teaching you how to use the phone, including it’s many hidden gestures. This is both a positive and a negative. On the positive, it simplifies and cleans up the user interface as there are less onscreen buttons and commands required. On the negative, I’ve probably forgotten most of them already as there was a lot to take in (did you know our short term memories can only hold around 5-9 items for 15-30 seconds unless they’re repeated?).
The setup process teased me with the face recognition, iris scanner and fingerprint scanner as security measures, but it skipped the actual setup process of these which was odd. I had to go back into them afterwards and they are impressive! I’ve now setup all three but am currently using the face recognition. You do have to press the hardware key first to wake up the phone but then the process of scanning your face is almost instant. In the past, Samsung have been let down by gimmicky features that didn’t actually work very well in reality, but this is reliable, quick and cool. I love it!
The edge panel is a little disappointing. It’s one swipe access to your favourite apps, contacts or editing tools, however I don’t see the benefits, when you could just put your favourite apps on your Home screen, or you could just swipe up to see all your apps. It also covers the whole screen as opposed to just popping out from the edge. It feels like a step backwards from their previous designs of the edge. On the Note, the edge was something I used all the time to access my favourite apps because it’s always onscreen. On the S8 it doesn’t have that benefit. Instead, I’ve placed my fave apps on my Home screen as it feels easier to access than dragging in the apps from the edge (which often switches panels instead of bringing out the edge, so you need to be accurate).
Bixby is amazing! I love that I can take a photo or add an image and it will find me that item online. It will even translate languages. I’m looking forward to trying this when I visit Lisbon later this month – it should make translating menus really easy!
The camera is incredible in daylight and I’m really impressed with the background blur effect that you can get (who needs an SLR when you have an S8?!). However I tried both photos and video last night and they were both a little pixelated. In fact, I’d say my Note Edge was better for night time shots. I did just have it on the default mode so this may be improved if there is a night mode – I haven’t played around too much with the settings yet.
There’s a nice hardware shortcut that I discovered to get to the camera. Let’s face it, no one really carries a camera with them anymore because your phone is your camera these days, so why is the camera app always so cumbersome to access? Samsung have solved this by a simple double press of the Power key. It means there’s no need to look at the UI (which is a struggle on a sunny day), you can keep your eyes on the subject you want to photograph whilst you’re taking your mobile out and turning on the camera. THIS IS GREAT USER EXPERIENCE!
There’s so much more I could say but I’ll save that for another post once I’ve settled in with the S8 and used it a bit more.
So far, I’m really impressed. Sleek, high quality hardware and impressive features. It feels futuristic and I can’t wait to see what else it can do!
Is there anything you want to know or see of the S8?
Let me know and I’ll check it out for you.
Over christmas, I was sat with my stepdad as he opened up his new Kindle and attempted to set it up (a whole other usability story!). As it asked for his Amazon password he exclaimed how he didn’t have a clue what it was but he’d find out. The next thing I know, he’s opening up a spreadsheet on his laptop full of all his passwords! There must have been 20-30 of them. He said it’s the only way he can keep track of them all.
I was at a focus group recently where discussion naturally lead onto the topic of passwords. Every single person described how frustrated they are with the increasing pressure to create ever complex passwords that they then don’t remember.
It’s clearly a heated topic amongst users but with security being a top concern for companies (and rightly so), it puts ux designers in an awkward catch 22 situation. Make the password too complex and you risk people making the very un-secure decision of writing the thing down. Perhaps even putting it on a post-it by their computer – yes this happens!
Anyway, as it’s Friday, let’s take a funny look at how this feels from the user’s perspective. I suspect most of you have also experienced this, haven’t you?
I just had to share with you this video on how guys might use Google Glass (or should that be glasses?) in the future. Pretty funny! Maybe we shouldn’t laugh too soon though as it may well become the future! People are distracted enough as it is, it’s just that the glasses may make the distraction harder to detect. At least right now you can see if someone’s using their mobile whilst they’re supposed to be listening to you.
I find it amazing the number of people who walk down the street looking down, eyes glued to their handset, using only their peripheral vision to navigate their way through the world. At least with Google Glasses they’ll at least start looking up once more, even if they are still not paying attention to the world around them.
Have you ever been to a website specifically to look for something and no matter how hard you look you just can’t find it? Most people will give up within a few seconds, hit the back button and go to a competitor. This is why your Information architecture is incredibly important – get it right and you will keep more people within your site, lowering your bounce rate and improving your conversion.
What is information architecture?
In simple terms, it’s about structuring your content to feel intuitive and logical to the end user.
An example of how not to do it
Tesco Direct have placed Halloween items within the heading ‘Christmas’ on the navigation bar. Users will struggle to find this as it makes no logical sense – halloween and christmas are completely separate occasions.
If a visitor to your website has the intention of browsing halloween things, they will already have expectations of where halloween things will be. Your aim is to try to understand their expectations of where they’ll find halloween related products. Only when you understand this, can you position it in the optimal place.
Card Sorting to create intuitive IA
One of the methods I employ to help create intuitive Information Architecture is Card Sorting. It’s an activity carried out with users (i.e. your target audience) using labelled cards to group and organise pages of content. Users categorise the pages in the way that makes sense to them and they can use existing grouping or create their own. What this enables us to do is to see the structure of your site or software from the user’s point of view – we can see and understand their mental model.
Card sorting exercise in action:
If you’d like to understand more about how reviewing your IA can help your business or if you’re curious about card sorting please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Do you read UX Booth? If you’re interested in User Experience then bookmark it now! It’s been my favourite site for reading interesting and useful UX articles for a number of years now. As such, when I decided to write a guest post, they were my first choice. I decided to write about 5 little (white) lies that can be told during user research interviews to gain higher validity data.
I’ve conducted hundreds of research interviews and I’ve picked up a few useful techniques along the way to encourage the best out of the people I interview. This includes making them feel more at ease, increasing rappor, gaining trust and encouraging an open dialogue where it is ok to be 100% honest.
Active and passive deception has been used in research for a long time. In the past it was unfortunately used unethically and there are a lot of examples out there of how not to use deception. The Milgram experiment is one of the most known for the psychological and physical damage it caused.
Of course, all the lies I use and recommend are incredibly nice. They’re white lies and many UX researchers use some or even all of them. You don’t have to use any but they are a useful tool to have in your UX toolbox. Enjoy! 🙂
Read the article: 5 Useful Lies to Tell User Research Participants
Lisa Marie Ortega 